Time will tell...

I just finished reading an article entitled "Windows 7 passes Snow Leopard, Linux" on Ars Technica. In it, the author points out that according to October stats from Net Applications, Windows 7 has achieved a 2.15% website viewing share. That's an impressive number given that Windows 7 went on sale just 9 days before the end of the month! Microsoft definitely deserves congratulations if this trend continues.

When the inevitable comparison to Snow Leopard's market share is made, I think it's a bit misleading. In absolute market share, Windows 7 beats the slightly over two months old Snow Leopard (sitting at 1.17% browser share) in the Net Applications survey results. Yep, after 9 days, Windows 7 has nearly twice the installed base of Snow Leopard - and must have at least twice Snow Leopard's share as I write this. But, that number is a measure of the absolute web browser market share which, I think, is the wrong metric to compare.

The numbers look different when you compare the size of the two new OS challengers relative to the total share size of their respective OS predecessors. Looking at the uptake within the family, two-month old Snow Leopard has just over 22% of the total Mac OS surfing share (5.27%), while Windows 7 has already passed 2.3% of the total Windows browser share (92.52%). That's still good news for Windows 7, and makes perfect sense, too. Windows 7's share relative to its older Windows relatives is smaller than Snow Leopard's share relative to its Mac OS X relatives because it's been available for less time.

Unfortunately, looking further back, two-and-a-half year old Windows Vista's browser share is sitting at just 20.4% of the total Windows web share. I'll say it again. That's 20.4% after 2-1/2 years. That's less adoption than Snow Leopard achieved in just over two months. Even if all of the new Windows 7 users had actually upgraded from Vista, Vista would only have equaled Snow Leopard's share at its peak before Vista's share started eroding from people upgrading to Windows 7. Pretty underwhelming adoption for Windows Vista, I'd say.

Will Windows 7's fortunes surpass Vista's? I hope so. And I think Microsoft hopes so, too. Windows 7 has some advantages going forward. Better speed and fewer driver problems will help it to get more positive press than Vista did on release, with its steep hardware requirements relative to Windows XP added to Vista's signed driver requirements. Many people who held off and made do with Windows XP rather than making the jump to Vista are ready to get a new computer now, nearly three years later, and all of the new computers will of course ship with Windows 7 preinstalled. And, keep in mind that computer prices relative to performance have come down a ways since Vista's debut. It will be cheaper, in absolute terms, to get a Windows 7 machine now than a Vista capable computer back then. Businesses, too, have waited out Vista by sticking with XP - they may now be ready to make the switch.

While Windows 7 is off to a good start, there will still be challenges hindering it's growth, not the least of which is the two-generations old Windows XP. And I wouldn't yet say its share has beaten Snow Leopard's, yet. Windows 7's market share will increase over time, but only time will tell how quickly, and how high.